Once the war horn sounds, it is difficult to stop it.
The war between the Æsir and the Vanir, a grand conflict involving two pantheons for the first time since the world's birth, quickly spread with astonishing fury.
The battlefield stretched across the plains of Miðgarðr, the borders of Jötunheimr, and sometimes even to the edges of the World Tree.
The warriors of both sides displayed impressive courage and tenacity.
The legions of the Æsir and the Vanir were like two raging tides, clashing and surging against each other again and again.
Spear points pierced divine bodies, blades severed limbs, and magical radiance and thunderous roars intertwined, painting the sky and earth in blood-red and scorched black.
Each god's weapon was stained with the enemy's blood, and the brutality of war defied imagination.
However, as the war progressed, the scales of victory began to tip slightly.
The advantages of the Vanir gradually became apparent.
Under the guidance of 'Narcissus' and blessed by their own talents, the Vanir did not cast scattered attack spells, but practiced coordinated magic.
This large-scale magical assault made the Æsir, accustomed to fighting in groups with individual bravery, extremely uncomfortable and often led to heavy losses during attacks.
Thanks to the close partnership with the dwarf kingdom, the warriors of the Vanir were equipped with weapons and armor forged by the masterful skills of the dwarves.
These pieces of equipment were not only stronger and sharper but also effectively enhanced the wearer's magic.
In contrast, although the Æsir could also obtain equipment from the elves, their craftsmanship was lighter and more nature-friendly, and in terms of combat effectiveness and protection, they were slightly inferior to the dwarven masterpieces; moreover, the elves were not fully willing to supply combat gear.
The Vanir's deep connection with nature allowed them to heal the wounded faster and obtain continuous supplies and support from the environment.
The Æsir were somewhat passive in a protracted war of attrition.
Although the Æsir had unparalleled generals like Thor, as well as Odin's unfathomable wisdom and runic magic, the Vanir gradually gained the upper hand in the overall battle situation.
The war escalated into a brutal tug-of-war and attrition, with both sides paying a heavy price, and countless warriors falling.
Away from the battlefield, in the underworld, a more critical but silent battle was taking place.
According to the laws of the Norse world, gods were not completely immortal.
They too could die, but their souls usually held a special status.
Theoretically, with the help of certain powerful rituals, the souls of fallen gods could be retrieved and transformed into divine bodies, achieving 'resurrection'.
However, the essence of all this was that their souls had to be accessible and controllable.
At this moment—the underworld.
It was not as orderly as the Greek Hades, but rather resembled a cold, deathly, and misty wasteland.
Countless shades, including the fallen warrior gods from the war, wandered here in a daze.
However, an external will had already quietly penetrated and seized this land of death.
Hades, as the King of Hades in the world of Chaos.
When he established a symbiotic connection with the World Tree through 'Narcissus' and became one of the God-Kings of this world, he naturally extended his will of Hades into the underworld.
Just as it is called Helheim, named after Hel in mythology, the underworld at this moment could also be called Narcissusheim, or Hadesheim, or Metisheim.
The law of death surrendered to him, and the fate of dead souls was decided by him.
Therefore, when the souls of the fallen gods from the Æsir-Vanir war flowed into the underworld according to the laws of this world, they were instantly seized and sealed by an invisible and cold will.
Hades, in the form of 'Narcissus' sitting by the lake in Vanaheimr, manifested his invisible majesty in the underworld.
He clearly 'watched' these imprisoned souls—they were bargaining chips, chips for the final negotiations with Odin in this war.
As both God-Kings knew, Ragnarök was the inevitable fate of this world, and the price for the primordial sin was deeply rooted in the foundation of the World Tree.
Odin had sacrificed himself to gain wisdom, and it was this desperate and inevitable end that he had seen.
The main purpose of all his efforts was to fight for a glimmer of life for the Æsir in this catastrophic destruction, or to leave a spark for possible new life after the catastrophe.
And in this grand plan against fate, Freyr and Freyja, two key members of the Vanir, held an irreplaceable position.
Odin knew this.
He needed them not to win the war before him, but for a more distant and desperate end.
In his eyes, 'Narcissus', as a God-King of the same standing and possessing the same understanding of fate, even if both sides opposed each other in path and power, should be in the same position before the common enemy 'Ragnarök'—to delay it or leave more hope for the side of order.
He believed that 'Narcissus' also understood that Freyr and Freyja were worth far more than winning or losing a war.
However, Odin assumed that 'Narcissus' was an ancient god of this world, following the logic of this world, caring for its survival.
He did not know that the essence of 'Narcissus' was Hades, the King of Hades, and Metis, the goddess of wisdom, from Chaos.
They were not interested in the rights and glory of this doomed world itself.
Their goal from beginning to end was to absorb the post-twilight roots of the world and sift and absorb its valuable 'heritage'—including those with talent—into their own world of Chaos.
Thus, this seemingly tragic war, engulfing two pantheons, was essentially a silent transaction at the level of Hades and Odin.
The process of war was nothing more than the process of increasing the bargaining chips.
The Vanir had the advantage on the battlefield, with more fallen Æsir souls, making the chips in Hades's hand heavier.
Odin, on the other hand, had to show the strength and resilience of the Æsir, to prove that he was not an opponent who could be easily defeated, so as not to be excessively blackmailed in the negotiations.
At the same time, the war itself could consume some gods doomed to fall in 'Ragnarök'; in a sense, it could be seen as an 'advance inventory clearance' and optimization of the lineup that would ultimately decide the finale.
They were all waiting for the moment, the moment when both sides felt the chips were sufficient to sit down at the negotiating table and conduct a 'post-war hostage exchange'.
What did Hades want?
In addition to the future ownership of Freyr and Freyja, two 'high-quality assets', he might also want to obtain the deeper secrets of the Runic Runes in Odin's hands, or the souls of some gods with special fates.
What was Odin willing to give?
To obtain the 'cooperation' or 'allegiance' of Freyr and Freyja, to redeem the souls of warriors vital to the Æsir for maintaining military strength, he might have to part with some valuable knowledge, artifacts, and even agree to Narcissus's intervention in certain matters in the future.
Beneath the smoke of war, the cold eyes of the two God-Kings met in the void.
Every fall of a god, every victory or defeat in battle, increased or decreased the weight on both ends of the scale.
The Vanir fought for dignity and fury, and the Æsir fought for glory and survival.
And their God-Kings used their blood and lives to conduct an extremely ruthless deal about the end of the world and themselves.
When the war burned to a certain degree, when both sides felt weary, when the soul chips in Hades's hand became too heavy for Odin to ignore, and when the power displayed by Odin made Hades feel that the cost of continuing the offensive was too high—
that was the moment when the peace treaty was signed and hostages were exchanged.
At that time, Freyr and Freyja might go to Ásgarðr as 'symbols of peace', and Odin would pay the price demanded by Hades to redeem the souls of the fallen warriors.
On the surface, it was the end of the war and the arrival of peace.
In essence, it was the completion of the first phase of the game between the two God-Kings and the further advancement of preparations for the finale of 'Ragnarök'.
Hades watched the situation, patiently waiting for the moment when the scales would tip entirely in his favor.
He cared not about the tragedy of the process, only about the final outcome. The wails and glory of this world were merely a path to stronger... essential nutrients.